By Matthew Bowers
The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK, Va. — The Norfolk police Department’s largest and most diverse recruit class was sworn in Thursday night as new patrol officers.
Among those taking the oath were a 20-year-old mother who stands 5 feet tall and a 21-year veteran of the New York City and Rochester, N.Y., police departments, pinning on a new badge after 3½ years of retirement.
They and others said their instructors emphasized integrity and accountability, even before last week’s announcements that three city officers - two active, one resigned - had been indicted on charges of lying on the job.
“They beat it into your head from day one: ‘You lie, you’re done,'\" said Elmer Laureano, 45, the former New York officer.
Jason Roebuck, 21, who grew up in the area and wanted to join the Norfolk force, said police work “is a lot more than just going out and wrestling around with criminals.”
“A split-second decision like that” - he snapped his fingers - “will affect your life. In a second.”
The 41 officers who received their badges at a ceremony at Nauticus, the downtown maritime museum, include seven women and seven individuals who speak Spanish. Those 41 passed the academic and physical requirements; 58 officer recruits - more than half of them minorities - began training more than 20 weeks ago. The graduates will be paired with training officers for the next three months before hitting the streets on their own.
The department now employs 772 sworn officers - four more than its authorized complement. It struggled with understaffing for years after losing 89 officers to a 2005 retirement incentive program. Police Chief Bruce P. Marquis has stepped up recruitment and training.
Laureano said he returned to police work partly for financial reasons - pensions don’t go as far as they did, and one of his two sons is in college. His other one is joining the Marine Corps next year, and both plan to follow Dad into law enforcement, which fills him with pride and worries him.
“The streets haven’t gotten any better from when I first retired,” Laureano said.
Roebuck, roughly the age of Laureano’s sons, had a grandfather on the force for a brief career but drew inspiration more from another grandfather who, underage, wangled his way into the Army and survived the D-Day invasion at Normandy.
“Just, really, the honor that goes with it, and the courage,” Roebuck said.
Diminutive Beatriz Juarez - “I stand up, and they say, ‘Stand up!'\" - has to wait a week on desk duty before she turns 21 and goes on the street. Her husband is in the Navy; her girl, Sarahi, turns 2 on Saturday; and becoming a policewoman fulfills her dream and those of her parents. They came from Mexico decades ago to pick crops and desired better lives for their children, Juarez said.
“I wanted to set an example for my daughter,” she said.
Marquis also talked Thursday about setting examples, mentioning the department’s recent professional accreditation as well as the indictments.
City Manager Regina V.K. Williams told the recruits’ families in the audience about long ago opposing her late husband’s wishes to become a police officer.
“I appreciate the fact,” she said, “that you had more courage than I did at that point in my life.”
Copyright 2008 Virginian-Pilot